food « Handmade Librarian

Starting with a Potato.

I have lived in New York for over seven years, and by now I feel at home. But on many days I still haul myself home, exhausted by the unexpected and unexplainable weight of daily life here. And after too many days in a row like that, it can take a grand gesture on the

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Pecans & Maple Syrup.

(from U.S. Department of Agriculture Pomological Watercolor Collection. Rare and Special Collections, National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, MD 20705)

This Friday is the fourth annual staff cookie swap at my library. Although it’s a low-key and ephemeral type of event, it has become one of my favorite work-meets-holiday moments. Not only do I collect a

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Marzipan Buttons.

Sara Varon’s new book, Bake Sale, has come out, and it has recipes and sweet conversations between two best friends: a cupcake named Cupcake who owns a bakery, and an eggplant named Eggplant who has an itch to travel. If you think it all sounds too gentle for your irony-accustomed tastebuds, do think again. Varon’s

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Home Sick.

I’ve been marooned in bed for a couple of days, locked in battle with a dogged virus of some sort. And in spite of the fact that much of my energies have been spent sniffling and coughing and complaining, and I’ve not had the concentration to knit, I’ve been productive in other ways.

Here’s

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